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Let It Snow! Seasons Readings for a Super Cool Yule!
Do you eread? Do you have friends and family who eread? Well, today and tomorrow (December 14th and 15th), this awesome collection will be FREE!! Who doesn't like FREE?! In this collection are some of most amazing authors I know lead by the fabu Red Tash. From trolls and faeris, to a crazy dinner party, with even a little Zoe madness for you fans of my novel "Whispers of the Dead", you'll find something to tantalize your white matter! And don't be afraid to share this with your friends and family. You know, the ones you're not gifting, too! Um, why aren't you gifting to them, too?! ;-)Just kidding.So from this naughty elf not sitting on your shelf to you, I express my grand thanks in advance!

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 17 - Flight or Fight

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Fifteen bugs and two hours later, Milo dropped exhausted into one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room. Whatever magick had run them had caught on to the hunt, and though their mechanical bodies required them to stay within the walls of her house, their energy allowed them to teleport from one wall to another at whim. It had forced him to use more magick, to push it wider and farther than he had ever had to in his life. Like he had to anticipate all the places these things could go, and get threads of his spell work there first.

He was almost certain at least one of them got off a transmission before being caught and destroyed, and that should have worried him—no, it did—but he was so very tired. His eyes closed, and he caught himself drifting.

“Milo?”

His lids fluttered open, and he wiped at the drool attempting to escape from the corner of his mouth. Madeleine knelt before him on the carpet. “Hey.”

“Here,” Madeleine handed him a soda. “Sugar helps me.”

“I didn’t know you could have sugar.” He gave her a grateful smile and took the can. “I thought vampires were purely interested in blood.”

She settled onto the carpet, legs crisscross applesauce and pulled another soda from behind her, popped it open and took a big sip. “Sure, blood’s good, but we can indulge in other things, too. I rather like chocolate and puff pastries. Sugar helps me when I’ve worn myself out after a good, er, altercation. And I’m a fan of carbonation, too.”

He took a drink. “What about garlic?”

Madeleine raised a brow. “We’re going to play twenty questions now?”

Milo chuckled. “Sure. I’m just, well, I’m worn the fuck out, excuse my French. And my choices are going home and sleep this off, or stay here and talk to you some more. I would like to continue our date, but I don’t know if I’m up to a dinner out, though.”

“It’s okay.” She showed him her cell phone. “I ordered in. Hope you like pizza.”

His stomach rumbled. “Oh, yeah, pizza sounds great.”

“So, you sure you haven’t had enough excitement for one date?”

Milo waved her off. “Nah, and how dangerous could a game of twenty questions get? I’m hot, sweaty and ready to pass out like a dork in front of you. And I’m pretty much thinking that’s a sensory cocktail that wouldn’t even tempt a hottie vampire like yourself. So I figure, this means I get to hang out some more, learn new things about you, tell you a little bit more about myself, and if that means you eventually take pity on me and carry me off to your boudoir, who am I to object?”

Her response started off as a small giggle she hid behind the soda can, but it morphed into a hysterical belly laugh that echoed off the walls of her living room and left her on the carpet on her back. For a minute there, Milo thought he may have finally crossed that line.

She sat back up, wiping blood—blood?—from her eyes. Must be a vampire thing.

“Hold on,” she panted between continued giggles. She got to her feet and disappeared around the corner. She returned with a handful of tissues and daubed at her eyes. “I know it can be disconcerting to see a woman in tears, even when they’re just from laughter, worse when it’s a vampire and well, yeah.” She showed him the tissue in her hand spotted red against the white two-ply.

“Ah, and here I thought I’d perhaps gotten too cheesy with my agenda.”

She shook her head. “I just thought it was funny that despite our horrendous track record…”

“Um, two dates a track record does not make,” he interrupted.

Madeleine rolled her eyes. “Okay, well, given how well things have gone with us thus far, I thought it was funny that amidst all that, you were still flirting with me, that you still wanted into my bed.”

“Have you looked at yourself?” He raised a hand. “Wait, is that a real vampire thing? The no reflection thing?”

“Does this count as one of your twenty questions?” she asked as she picked up her soda. “Because you know you’re already down one.”

He shook his head. “Ah, no, no, I’m not, because you did not answer the first one.” He smirked. “Thought I’d forgotten that in my self-made concussion?”

She chuckled. “All right, all right, fine, but then I get to ask two to catch up.”

Milo nodded. “Seems only fair. Though I guess if I didn’t agree, you could just pummel me with pillows right where I’m sitting, because it’s not like I’m going anywhere for a while.”

The doorbell rang, and she stood up again. “Hold that thought. Must be the pizza. That was fast.”

But as she crossed the room in her very human pace, a sudden trickle of new magick walked across Milo’s skin, like liquid razor blades sniffing his own magick. “Madeleine, wait!”

He jumped out of the chair and started for her, but time slowed around him. It was like watching a pivotal scene in an action movie. He pushed harder to close the gap between them as her hand inched toward the doorknob. The other magick pulsed harder against the door.

“Madeleine, no!” he screamed.

She shook her head at him, the hair flowing on the currents of time, confused, but it was too late. She touched the doorknob and the door literally exploded inward. The blast threw her backwards into Milo and he caught her as they slammed into the opposite wall. The door jamb twisted, expanded around a huge figure. With a flaming sword. Dark Supernatural. Aw, shit!

“They found me!” he yelled into Madeleine’s ear.

She twisted around. “You? I thought he was here for me!”

“He who?”

The vampire didn’t have time to answer as whatever dark super it was reached its free hand into the house and ripped the roof off the front half of the house.

“Come out!” it bellowed, all sulfuric breath and anger. “Don’t make this worse by making me come after you!”

Madeleine got to her feet and grabbed Milo with one hand. “We have to get out of here!”

She glanced at him, and an icy spike went through him. Her eyes were pitch black and shiny and her fangs were out. If she was going to kill him now, he would not be able to stop her. His fear must have shown on his face, because she paused, closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them again, they were normal, but he could feel how hard it was for her to hold it back, restrain herself, in the strum of her magick rolling down her arm to him.

I can get us out. Her lips did not move, her words a whisper in his head. But I can’t do it like this, in this form. Do you trust me?

The dark super tore another large chunk off the front of the house, and Milo realized he was more afraid of what would happen if they didn’t get out of here than what might happen with Madeleine. If it was a trap, if she was in league with his newfound enemies, she could have left him here, easily. But she too was in danger the longer they stayed within the crumbling compound.

“I trust you!” he yelled and grabbed her arm. “Do what you need to do.”

She hesitated for just a moment, a sadness crossing her face, but liquid black poured into her eyes, her fangs lengthened, and before Milo’s widening eyes, she unfurled gigantic black wings from her back. Hold on.

She smiled at him and turned her attention skyward. She raised her free hand, palm up, and Milo could feel her power, like a winter breeze, burst from her hand, parting what remained of the roof from the rafters. She flexed her wings and just as the front wall fell, they shot upward, out of the house and into the midnight sky.

The house grew tiny beneath their feet, the dark super raging at their escape, before she leveled out their altitude. She reached down with her other hand and grabbed him like it was nothing. He slid his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. He wondered why his legs were not dangling beneath them, given that she was flying horizontally.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his ear. “For all this.”

He gave her a half-hearted chuckle and hugged her tightly. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I haven’t had this much fun on a date in years,” he jested.

“Oh, Milo.”

Those two words held such sadness, his heart hurt. What could he tell her to make this better? He turned his head, and off in the distance, he saw a black cloud rising from the city lights, a darkness that whispered of a thousand wings and hissing teeth. Well, shit. “Uh, Madeleine, we have company.”

She slowed and turned until they were perpendicular with the earth again. “Well, shit,” she repeated his sentiment. “I’ve got to get us out of the air, but I have to keep us out of city limits.” She looked around. “We need a distraction. Hold onto me. I need my hands.”

He wrapped his arms and legs around the vampire. The scent of blood filled the air, and when he looked to see what she was doing, he saw she had opened up one forearm and… “What are you doing?”

“I can call blood,” she said, “And I can make it semi-sentient.” The blood pouring from her open arm formed red marbles that hovered in the air around them. He could feel them, each one, giving off its own energy, a muted version of her own.

“Um, why?”

“Because we really need a distraction, remember? And those guys,” she pointed toward the quickly approaching mass, “are imps, and imps like…”

“Blood.” A light clicked on in his head. “And since they have the attention span of big gnats, this will throw them off our scent long enough to get somewhere else, before whomever is controlling them can get them to regroup and return to their mission.”

She smiled and licked her arm, sealing the wound, before patting him on the head. “I knew you were a smart one. Now, close your eyes, Milo.” She wrapped her arms around him again and tucked her head into the curve between his neck and shoulder. “This ride’s about to get really bumpy.”

And before he could formulate an appropriate comeback, she shot forward away from the oncoming horde and her blood baubles, and into mountains that surrounded Sierra Vista. The pace was nauseating, and after sneaking a peek at the cityscape below them and subsequently shoving down a nasty urge to toss up what little remained in his stomach, he understood why she had told him to keep his eyes closed.

As suddenly as they had begun, she stopped in mid-air, sending them careening at a speed that would have knocked the wind out of him had she not wrapped her wings around them both during their decent. He imagined that they must look like a large black blob falling from the sky at this point, but that could just have been his emerging hysterics talking.

The ground met them in a rush, but she had clearly had much practice and landed without incident. She shook her body and the wings folded back into the nothingness behind her. Milo glanced up at the sky, and he could see where they must have been. A roiling cloud of black shot in and out of itself amid the telltale imp chittering. It might have been a beautiful sight, had he not suspected that those creatures would have no qualms consuming him and Madeleine with the same vigor they were devouring her baubles.

“Milo, come on!” She tugged on his arm.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, as the entire mass shuddered. Apparently, their master was closer than they had hoped. “Let’s go.”

Together they ran into the depths of mountains, through the saguaro cactus and over scurrying lizards and scorpions. She was patient with his pace, or maybe she was as tired as he had been before this whole ordeal had begun. Either way, he was grateful that she caught him when he stumbled and kept them moving through the desert mountain.

They were not being followed that he could tell, no chirping, no magick behind them. He felt like they had been running for hours, and when she finally slowed their pace to a walk, he fell to his knees. “I can’t go any further.”

She knelt beside him, looking paler than usual, and tired as all get out. “I know, but we have to keep moving. There’s a cave system not much farther from here that not even the humans know about.”

“Unless you can carry me, and I really doubt that at this point with as much blood as you just released, then we have to rest until I can get my legs under me again. Otherwise we’re fucked.”

“If we stay here much longer, we’ll be imp cuisine,” she pushed. “Wait, what kind of mage are you?”

He blinked at her. “Are you questioning my mage-ness?”

She shook her head. “Seriously. Milo, what kind of mage are you?”

He was not tracking where she was going, but that was probably sheer exhaustion clouding his head. “Talk to me like I’m stupid, Madeleine.”

She lifted his chin. “How do you get your magick? Are you an elementalist? An illusionist? A morpher?”

“Um,” he closed his eyes, willing his grey matter to stay awake for just a little longer. “Elemental. I use elemental magick. Why?”

“We’re idiots,” she muttered. She let go of his face and grabbed his hands, shoving them into the ground. “We’re in a practically untouched area of earth. Beneath the earth is water, just a trickle, but it should be enough. Above us is air, and I’ll even tolerate a little fire, if you can use it to call on your magick.”

He shook his head at her. “It doesn’t work like that. I have to be awake enough to accept it. And right now, I’m pretty much an empty sieve.”

She pushed his hands harder, deeper into the dirt. “It does work like this. It can, but you have to feel it, you have to pull it out. You’re strong enough to do that. You have to be, because you’re not the only one running on empty, and you’re not going to be happy with how I recharge.”

He sighed. Not that he wanted to be vampire food, but… “I can’t…”

Madeleine ran her dusty hands over his bald head. “Milo, you’re our only hope. There’s something coming, something bigger than the imps, something larger up their master’s sleeve, and if we’re caught right now, there isn’t going to be much of a fight. And we’re going to probably wish they were just going to kill us.”

But there are things worse than death. Milo grimaced. “Okay, I’ll try. Watch my back.”

She leaned into him and planted the softest of kisses on his lips. “Good luck.” She walked away and left him to figure out how to do this.

Sure, he had heard of it. Elemental magick had to have started somewhere. And he knew how to mix and meld the stuff at his disposal, but he had always had the magick bottled up inside him, and when he was out, he was out, until he could sleep a good 12 hours. He had never questioned the process, just assumed that he was magickally recharged. If what she was saying was true, though…

“Concentrate, Milo,” he chastised himself. “Do this and you’ll have time to contemplate the bigger picture.” He closed his eyes.

At first, there was nothing but the cool earth between his fingers. Come on… He took a couple of deep breaths and, trusting that Madeleine would keep him as safe as she could, dropped his internal shields. He gasped when the cool desert sand turned hot against his palms, like it was noon out here, not midnight. That heat poured through his hands and up his arms, the muscles relaxing, warming, the ache dissipating in its wake.

He dug in deeper, and it was like the tickle beneath him had risen to meet his fingertips. The water rushed like a menthol breath over his skin. He could feel the minor scrapes from the pieces of Madeleine’s house that had flown at him healed, and he knew without seeing that there would not even be scars left behind.

That mystical tank inside him filled, flowed to overflowing, and Milo felt refreshed, alive and ready to face whatever it was that was coming next. He could save himself, save them both. The mage pushed himself upright, in awe of the bright red glow emanating from his body.

“Madeleine?” He turned to face her, the scent of her like a trail of ice in the middle of his heat. “Madeleine, it worked!”

“Oh, god,” she cried out. “No!”

“What’s wrong? Madeleine?” It took him a second to realize that she was not looking at him, but over him, behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as the scent of sulfur reached his nose. He turned around, and his jaw dropped.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

Continue: 18

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 16 – Mages and Magick

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She was standing there, all bare skin and terry cloth, looking for all the world like she had just stepped out of an Herbal Essence commercial. Milo blinked and smiled. “Well, hello there, Madeleine. We starting with dessert first?” He pulled a bouquet of tulips from behind his back and held them out to her.

“No, no, I had to take another shower,” she chuckled. She grabbed the bouquet by his hand, fingers touching his, and pulled him into the house with a soft kiss. She smelled nice, definitely that fresh out of the shower scent, all baby powder and vanilla. “I would’ve been ready,” she paused, contemplating him. “I know you’re a mage, but how good are you at detecting other people’s magick?”

Odd question. He shrugged. “Depends wholly on the type of magick used and how much power was put behind it. Why do you ask?”

Madeleine took a quick look around the living room. “Not here.”

“What…?” he started to ask when she grabbed his hand and lead him into her master bathroom. She closed the door behind them and stilled in that way that only the undead can do, like every fiber of their being just stopped. “Madeleine?”

“Do you feel anything in here?” She leaned into him, her words a decibel above a whisper.

He refrained from telling her just what her proximity was doing to him, thought about baseball and math, and swallowed hard. “You mean magick stuff?” He thumbed toward the doorway. “The stuff you were asking about out there?”

She nodded.

“Um, give me a sec.” He closed his eyes and sorted through the layers in the small room. There was the living, mundane layer of leftover steam and hair and body products. Beneath that was a more ethereal layer. He could feel her power there, a cool azure pool of it with no ebb or flow, like the glassy surface of a pond on a windless day. His own power glowed red hot, like an iron waiting to be struck, crawling like tendrils through the space. Deeper he pushed into the ether, but though the colors of their magicks merged and mingled, brightening in the new plane, he could see nothing else.

Milo blinked several times and pulled himself out of the sight. “There’s nothing, Madeleine.”

She exhaled, the relief visible on her face and across her shoulders. “Good. Would you mind doing that for the rest of my house?”

“Um, may I ask why?” He leaned against the door. “It’s not like you could have a stalker.”

The vampire looked at him, curious, head cocked to the side, one eye brow raised. “No? You don’t think I could have a stalker? Because, what? I might eat them?”

Milo crossed his arms and nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

She smiled, curiosity to amusement. “There are other things in this world, you know. Of course, you know. Things that are a little big for my stomach to handle.”

“And…you think one of them is after you now?” As the words came out of his mouth, he was reminded of the fairy duke at the store and his warning. He was man enough to admit that he did not mind having a bad ass woman on his arm tonight. Just in case. But if she was being stalked, was there some connection? And if it was by something bigger and badder than the woman he wanted to date…

He shook the thought out of his head. “Madeleine, what’s going on?”

She sighed and sat down on the toilet. The mage started to sit on the floor, but given the vantage point within the open scope of her towel, and the fact that he really did want to know what was going on, he decided standing was a better option. She told him about the demon wearing a bad Girl Scout suit, and about her ex—not to be confused apparently to the guy she had set on fire a couple of weeks early—but the most curious part for them both was how this Patrick fellow knew about their plans.

“You haven’t been out all night?”

She shook her head. “Not since I was with you.”

“Hm, what about your cell phone?”

Madeleine raised a brow at him again. “Seriously?”

Milo raised both hands in defense. “Hey, the sooner we eliminate the mundane human stuff, the sooner we can move on to the not so human stuff.”

She sighed and handed over her cell phone. “I don’t even know what to look for.”

The mage smiled at her. “That’s all right. I do.” He dismantled the piece and examined the innards. The usual suspects all lay in their proper places, unaltered, undiminished, whole. He floated his hand above the exposed parts and pushed a little magick over it, but nothing glowed, nothing hummed. The wiring, the tech, just lay quiet, mundane.

He reassembled the phone and handed it back to the vampire. “No bugs, supernatural or otherwise.” Milo stood up. “You stay here, and I’ll check out the rest of the house.”

Madeleine stood up. “Um, no. Even if I can’t see what’s going on, this is still my house, and I want to know. No, let me get into something less, er, distracting, and we can do a room by room check. If that’s okay with you.”

It was not as if she was really giving him a choice, but… “Sounds like a plan. Let me step out of here, and out of your bedroom, so you can get dressed.” He stepped out before she could say anything, and after he closed the door behind him, he exhaled and closed his eyes.

What he was about to endeavor to do would drain him. The paranoid part of him screamed the same foolish nonsense it had the night before, and he shoved it away. Madeleine seemed distressed, genuinely upset over the idea of this Patrick guy spying on her in her own home, and by magickal means, no less. That thought alone sent shivers up his spine. Mundane human spy crap did not affect supers the way that other supers’ magick did. Every touch was like a finger print that could be traced back to the caster. Good for them, to find out who was doing this. Good for the bad guys, because in order to track it, Milo would have to leave a fingerprint of his own that they could easily follow back to him.

Damn Duke Alistar! As a mage, he understood paranoia. There were always going to be people seeking to take down stronger mages for their own personal gain. And when you were as powerful as Milo had managed to get in the short breadth of his life, you learned to look over your shoulder when that first shiver of offensive magick tickled the hairs on the back of your neck. But this, this was something different.

Probably because he knew there was a price on his head. Add in Madeleine’s own distressing situation, and yeah, well, they were looking like a pair of really big targets. And if a vampire, who was easily the bigger bad ass in her own right, was afraid of what she was proposing to be true, well, that did not bode well for either of them.

But amidst all the paranoia, that terrible, strangling feeling that something evil this way comes, there was a spark of anger. The mage did not like being threatened, but to have those he liked (or wanted to date) endangered in kind, the whole guilt by association insanity, just pissed him off. He preferred his enemies to attack head on, but given the sheer nature of the dark side, it was to be expected that they would no do so just because he wished it.

“But it would be nice,” he sighed. The bedroom door opened, and she stepped out in a cute little red tube top that flowed to her hips over pair of black slacks. “You look amazing.”

Madeleine blushed. “The dress I was wearing early was nicer, but the stench of sulfur doesn’t really come out, and it’s kind of a buzz kill. Hence the shower, and,” she gestured at her new outfit, “the costume change.”

“Probably for the best,” Milo mused. “I don’t think they’d let us in with you wrapped in towels.”

She smiled a wicked, naughty curl of lips. “Oh, you’d be amazed what I can get away with.” She winked at him and laughed. “That was silly. Sorry. I’m just, I get weird when I’m freaked out.”

He nodded. “I get that. Completely. So, let’s get the weird part over already so that we can get on with the good stuff. What do you say?”

“I think that’s a good plan, sir.”

He gestured up the hallway. “Lead on, m’lady.”

“You just want to look at my ass,” she teased as she started up the hallway.

“Nah, but it’s a nice perk.”

The hallway emptied into a spacious living room with higher ceilings than he had pictured standing outside. “Your own personal brand of magick?” he asked her, pointing skyward.

“Yeah, well, no, not mine. I didn’t do it. But I paid for it to be done by a lovely Mexican brujah shortly after I moved in.”

He dropped his sight to the second level and saw the intricate pattern of the creator’s magick zig zagging the actual ceiling. “She’s good. Very good.” Out of the corner of his eyes, something skittered across the wall. “Don’t move.” He moved over the carpet in smooth, normal steps, keeping the thing visible in his peripheral vision.

“I don’t see anything,” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t either, without my mage sight. Just trust me, okay?”

She did not reply, and he did not want to turn his head, lest he lose whatever it was he was tracking, so he trusted she was doing what he had asked. A foot from the wall, he raised his left hand. “Come to me,” he whispered. In his mage sight, he could see a funnel of power pour from the center of his palm, red, electric, like a tube of lightning. And when it hit the wall, it started to ripple outward along the paint and into the sheetrock and mortar.

The creature stopped dead in its tracks. From his new eyes-forward vantage point, Milo could make out a rectangular body about two inches in length and an inch wide with three spindly legs on each of the longer sides and two long antennae like animated pieces of hair protruding from what must be the head. Its magick tasted like metal and earth, which would have made more sense had the metallic part not been so much more prevalent than the earth.

Bugs were earth, through and through, with some of the deeper crawlers stained with a little metallic tinge, since base metals wound through the layers of rock, sediment and dead dinosaurs. This ‘bug’, and he used the term loosely, felt like the opposite. One of the ripples washed over it, and it let out a mechanical squeal.

“What the hell?” He pushed a little more magick through his hand, and the rippling intensified. The creature shuddered, and Milo could hear a buzz. Not like a bee or any other insect he had ever heard, but more akin to the sound of his computer running at home. “Come!”

The bug attempted to escape, but the funnel had grown too strong, and in a flurry of legs and squeaking, it slide backwards through the wall and then the funnel, until it landed with unceremonious smack into the middle of his palm. It squealed again, getting its legs underneath it, and Milo crushed it with his fingers.

Dark purple ichors spilled from between his fingers, but Madeleine caught the drops with a towel. He gave her a curious look.

“You have no clue how much money I spend getting this carpet cleaned.” She wiped the outside of his hand. “Here, for the rest,” she said, handing him the towel.

“Thanks.” He unfurled his fingers slowly over the towel, and with the pointer finger of his free hand, pushed apart the pieces of the bug. “That’s amazing.”

She peered over his shoulder. “Is that what I think it is?”

He poked at one of the still-twitching legs. “If you’re thinking tele-mechanics, I’m going to have to agree.”

“Tele what?”

“Tele-mechanics. It’s an intricate form of magic that allows you built something mechanical and give it life, animation. This thing wasn’t really live, per se, but it was alive enough to wander through the walls without you being able to detect it. See this?” He pushed a small clear circle off his hand and onto the towel. “That’s a lens. And these,” he circled a series of wires, “led from there to the main body,” he flicked open the carapace, “where we have the processor and the transmitter. Whomever created this is brilliant. Devious but brilliant.”

Little wisps of magic issued from the mess, and in an instant, the towel was on fire. In his hand. Milo resisted the urge to drop it on the carpet, and pulled power from the little inferno--even magickal fires need oxygen to burn—and soon found his outstretched hand covered in foam. He looked up and saw Madeleine smiling sheepishly from behind a small fire extinguisher.

“Um, fire is bad for me,” she shrugged. “It’s kind of like breathing for you, my need to put fires out.”

“Like a rhino?” An apt analogy at the moment, given the creature’s proclivity to fire stopping.

She chuckled. “Yeah, I’m very much a rhino.” She handed him a new towel. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Milo wiped the foam and the underlying ash from his hand. “Thing is, there’s too much magick in the walls to sustain just this one bug, and one bug could not be everywhere in the house at one time.”

The smile slipped from her face. “So you think there are more.”

He appreciated that she did not make it a question, and nodded his agreement. “Time to go hunting.”

Continue: 17

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 15 - Decisions

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Maybe it was the blood talking, but about one quart of sangria later, Madeleine had come to a decision. She liked Milo, and she was not about to let her neurotic past screw things up with him. Come hell or high water, of which she was aware was rather possible in her world, she was going to pursue this matter until he decided otherwise.

Or so she was telling Abby over the phone.

“You’re drunk,” the witch giggled over the phone.

“I am not!” she protested, but then she hiccupped, let out a giggle of her own and sighed. “Okay, okay, maybe just a little. But you are, too!”

Her best friend’s giggles erupted into hysterical laughter. “I’d argue, but really, what’s the point?” She paused in an attempt to regain composure.

“Did you really give up Martin?”

Madeleine nodded, and then realized that Abby could not see her. “Yup. Gave him up.”

“For this Milo.”

She leaned her head against the comforting coolness of her kitchen counter. “Oh, Abby, if you met him, you would have done the same thing.”

“Well, it’s for the best, all around.”

The vampire harrumphed into the mouth piece.

“You are doing just fine without all the strings a live donor requires,” Abby countered in a tone that Madeleine knew was paired with an eye roll.

“I don’t care if he was just a blood ‘ho…”

“Blood doll,” the vampire interjected.

“Whatever.” Madeleine could almost see Abby waving off the technicality with one hand. “The point is that he has other clientele whose money is just as good as yours, and given enough time, he’ll be over the joy that is ‘Madeleine the Vampiress’ and all enamored with some other dark-haired maven.”

She thought about it, while drawing pictures with the rings of condensation left from her mugs. “You think so?”

“I know so.” And her confident tone eased the guilt just a little. “As for Milo…”

“Yeah?”

“Call him.”

Madeleine shook her head. “I don’ t know, Abbs.”

“Think of it this way. If he was going to kill you off for being a big, bad vampire, he would have done it during the day when you were helpless and vulnerable. You’re still alive, so to speak, he must not want you dead. And…hey!” she commanded as the vampire’s lips parted to play devil’s advocate. “Hey, and he said he would like to do it again sometime, didn’t he? Minus the inadvertent biting, I’m sure, unless he’s into that kind of thing and you just surprised him last night.”

She smiled. “Yeah, he did. Thanks, Abby. You’re the bestest bestie ever.”

The witch hiccupped and giggled again. “Well, duh. Go, call the man already, Maddie. I’m going to manhandle a psychic. Wonder if he’ll see it coming.” She started laughing hysterically and hung up the phone.

Madeleine lifted her head off the countertop and stared at her phone. Abby was right, and really, what was the worst he could do, aside from the obvious guillotine act? Tell her he did not want to see her again? And since she had resigned herself to that possibility already, would it hurt as badly? No, she guessed the worst thing he could do is tell her that he did want to see her again, because then she would have to come up a plan that did not involve a voluntary hermitage under a mountain of blankets.

“Fine, I’ll call him,” she told her phone before dialing Milo’s number.

It rang four times before he answered. “Hello?”

“I know it’s late,” she started, wanting to get it all out before he could object. Though she guessed he could always hang up on her. Too late to stop now. “And I know you’re probably heading to bed here soon. And I don’t know if you’ve forgiven me for last night yet or if you ever will, but I wanted to tell you something, Milo, okay?”

“I’m listening,” he replied with more than a little amusement in his tone.

“I like you. I mean, I really like you, Milo. Even if you are a mage. Wait, that sounded wrong. I mean, well, you know what I mean. And I’m thankful that you didn’t decide to cut off my head,” she could hear a muffled chuckle from his end of the line, but she pressed on. “But I can’t get you out of my head, and I want to see you again. And I promise not to bite you. Or I promise to try really hard not to bite you, but I like how you kiss me…” Oh, man, full out rambling now. “And I’d like to be kissed like that again.”

“Yeah?” He sounded surprised.

She cleared her throat, suddenly embarrassed. “Um, yeah, because, um, I haven’t been kissed like that in a long time, and I realize I’m slightly neurotic—oh, who am I kidding? I’m very neurotic—and I can promise you nothing beyond right now, because I just can’t. But if you’re at all interested in the ride—even though I’m pretty sure this is going to crash and burn like the frickin’ fourth of July—I’d love for you to come along with me. You know, if you’re at all interested.”

Milo laughed, a good-natured melody playing through the phone. “Crazy woman, I’m interested.”

It was her turn to be surprised. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yes, and if you’re not busy in about an hour, I’d love to take you out to eat. Any good vampire dive bars in little Sierra Vista?”

She chuckled. “No, no vampire dive bars, but I know of a place we can go.”

“So it’s a date.” He said it with a confidence that left her no room to debate. Oh, sure, she could have, but she kind of wanted to see the man, and if he wanted to call it a date, so be it.

“Yeah, it’s a date.”

*****

Madeleine had given him the name of the place and directions before they had gotten off the phone, and she called the restaurant to make reservations. Such short notice would have given anyone else pause, but she was ‘Madeleine the Vampiress’, as Abby had so nicely put it, and the staff at Dante’s Inferno knew her all too well.

She showered, did her makeup and hair, and slipped into a slinky red dress that did nice things for her cleavage and rear, um, assets. She took a snapshot with her camera and examined the results. No straps showed, her twins were not attempting to escape, and her make-up was well-applied and not reminiscent of a streetwalker. All good things.

It had been an unexpected discovery, and at first, all those years ago, she thought it was a fluke, but despite not having a reflection, vampires showed up on film, be it 35mm or digital cameras.

Odder still was the fact that not one vampire had been able to explain to her why. She was certain it had something to do with the space they were occupying. Vampire or not, they were physical, tangible manifestations, and what the film caught was what was in that slice of space. She had wondered how well the photos represented her and had been thankful when Abby had assured her that she did, in fact, look like the woman in the pictures.

Her doorbell rang—Milo had convinced her in a subsequent conversation to let him pick her up—and she hurried to the doorway. He was an hour early, though. Wonder what’s up…

But it was not her intended at the door.

“Would you like to buy some cookies?” a rather diminutive ugly child asked, all tangled blonde braids and glittering blue eyes, a grimy open box in her hands.

Madeleine wrinkled her nose at the subtle scent of sulfur. “Disguises do not become you, demon. And Girl Scouts hawk their wares neither at night or at this time of year.”

The childlike thing gave her a large toothy grin. “You always were a smart one, says our Master,” it hissed. “I bring you tidings.”

She shook her head. “Tidings are good things. You are a harbinger, not a herald, aren’t you?”

The demon had the audacity to look hurt. “I bring you tidings from our Master,” it repeated.

She waved it off. “I don’t want them.”

The braids shudders around its shoulders, like convulsing little snakes. “That is not an option.”

“Oh, but it is.”

The demon stamped its little foot on the stair. “No, you will listen to the words of our Master! You will listen and obey!”

“Oh, that’s it.” She knelt down and grabbed the creature by the front of its little uniform and jerked it hard. “You listen to me, you little piece of shit. I don’t know what you’re doing here, and quite frankly I don’t give a shit. You will take your little stinky ass back to whatever crack from hell that you crawled out of and leave me the hell alone.”

“But Master said...” Oh, gods, it looked like it was about to cry.

She shook it in an angry flurry of arms and legs, and oh, yes, such a demon, leathery wings. “I. Don’t. Care. If Patrick wants me to know so freakin’ badly, he can send me an email. Or a text. Doesn’t matter, because I’ll delete them both than listen to him carry on. I have plans tonight, and I don’t have time for anymore of his stupidity.”

That hurt shifted into anger. “Master is not stupid.”

Madeleine bared fangs. “Oh, yes, he is. And if you were smart, you would run away right now. I haven’t had a fresh kill in days.” Its eyes widened, anger to sudden fear. “And while I’m not partial to demon blood, it’s better than what I have in the fridge right now. And it doesn’t require a microwave, because it’s already piping hot.”

The demon little hands morphed into talons, and it took a swipe at her arm. The first one missed and sent it flailing backwards, but the second one had the added momentum forward and caught her, drawing four red lines across the white field of flesh. She dropped it in a fury of curse words and punted it across her front lawn. It scurried to its feet and headed for the gate.

“Go back to your Master, and tell him that I’m not interested,” she yelled after it.

“This isn’t over!” it screeched as the ground opened up before its feet. “Your magic man cannot save you!” It hissed at her with its forked tongue extended and hopped into the hole. The ground closed seamlessly with a puff of smoke.

“Great,” she muttered. “I freakin’ smell like sulfur now.”

Not to mention the blood dripping down her arm. She closed her eyes, shook her head and closed the door. She padded back to her bedroom, pulled the dress off and tossed it into the trash. Back into the shower, and as she washed her hair, she thought about the demon. It had not been a coincidence that the filthy, little thing had shown up on her doorstep on a night she had a date with the man she had been warned to leave alone. Patrick was continuing to keep tabs on her again, but how? She had not left the house, and had only spoken to Abby and Milo. Unless…

She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her, as she peered around the bathroom. Kind of stupid, considering the vampire was not about to use mundane, human method to determine what she was doing. She twisted another towel around her hair as she contemplated her next move.

He had to be spying on her through other means, and unless he was employing humans or supers, she was not going to be able to detect anything. That, or blood magick, because she could smell that. But as she had not already, Madeleine discounted that option. Hm.

What she needed was a magick-user.

The doorbell rang, and the light bulb went off in her head.

She flew to the doorway in just her two towels, and then she opened the door.

Continue: 16

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 14 - Contemplation

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Madeleine pulled the sheets off her bed. “Damn blood,” she muttered. They had been nice sheets, some of her favorites, all soft and sateen, and now they were ruined. She stood there, all that fabric balled up in her hands, and wondered what would happen now.

The bigger picture, of course, was that he was a white hat, and she had shown her true colors tonight. Would he be forced to attack her? Would she be ‘relocated’ elsewhere on the grounds of possible threat to humans? Or would Milo and his team just outright behead her? She touched her neck. That was not how she wanted to end her existence. Not by a long shot.

She trudged down the hallway, end of the sheet dragging behind her. The smaller but more significant picture, the thing that was more important in her eyes, was wondering if he thought less of her for what she was. Did he believe her when she said it had been an accident, that she had not meant to bite him? She had not been kidding when she told him that she could have killed him if she had wanted to.

But she had gotten so lost in his kisses, his hands, the depth of his attentions that the restraint that kept her glamour tight had unraveled on the proverbial edges. “At least my wings did not come out, I guess.” She sighed and shoved the dirty sheets into the front loading washing machine. “It’s the small things, right, Maddie?”

She added the detergent, liquid fabric softener and that color safe bleach stuff, and pressed all the right buttons. She leaned against the machine and buried her head in her hands. Everything that had happened over the last few days, how had she honestly expected this to end?

“But I really like him,” she whined to the washer. And as the words spilled from her lips, she understood how very true they were. She really did like Milo. She liked talking to him about anything and everything. She liked how well he understood her, how he had reached around the obstacles that surrounded her and found a path for her to get to him.

Yes, she loved the better part of tonight, all that flesh against flesh. She loved his hands and mouth, and she had not missed how well their personal energies had blended together. It meant something, more so because he was human. It meant more that he had not shied away from the chill of her skin, and when he was done, when she had inadvertently bitten his tongue, he had left her almost as warm as him.

But part of her had known it could not work out. That his nature and her nature, well, they would work great for the moment, but the long term? No, it just could not happen. It was abhorrent, unnatural, and it just could not work between them. Or am I just making excuses? She walked back to her room and laid out on the bare mattress.

It was possible, very possible, that she was looking for reasons to push him away. She was aware that she had it in her, that she was neurotic enough to not want this to work because she really felt like maybe Patrick was right about her. Maybe she did not deserve to be with anyone, because no one would ever want to stay with her.

She moved her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel on her bed. It occurred to her that she had come to an impasse. She was torn between the baggage she carried, the threat of her past and this growing warmth inside her from her interactions with Milo.

“I can’t make this decision right now!” she yelled at the ceiling. “And you can’t make me!” Madeleine shook her fist skyward. It was ridiculous, her indignation, but more so was the difficulty she was wading into with both feet. There was no reason she could not work through it, see what would happen with Milo—did that mean she was not about to give him up? Why, yes, it did!—before she gave in and became a hermit like so many of her kind.

“Screw Patrick,” she muttered. “What the hell does that old vampire know about anything?” She was talking to herself, she was aware, but it felt nice to get all of her system, even if no one could hear her. One hundred years of anger and angst poured out of her in a fury. She had loved him so much, given him so much, but how do you keep giving when what you are offering is left to ash on the floor at your feet? How do you exist when the person who is supposed to love you unconditionally neglects you in favor of other pursuits?

Madeleine shook her head and sat up. “Enough pity party already.”

It was an old battle, one she never could win, because it is hard to conquer when your opponent refuses to play. But it was like picking at a scar left by a wound long healed. Every time she got herself into such a situation, every time she ran into a mountain or a molehill in her love life, she could hear Patrick’s voice in her head, degrading her, bringing her down. Sure, visits from Tamus never helped, but at the end of the day, she was tired of giving power to a man who feigned interest in her for all the wrong reasons.

She swung her legs off the bed and went out to the linen closets to get another set of bed clothes. Dawn was coming, and she planned on being all snug in clean sheets beneath a warm, fluffy comforter when the sun hit her house.

*****

Madeleine kept running her hand over the empty side of her bed. The scent of him had left the bed when she had stripped it, but she could still smell him, all musk and man, in her room. Maybe she was imagining it, but just as she had imagined him memorizing the lines of her, all of her senses had done the same with him.

“I wonder what you look like when you’re sleeping,” she whispered to the open space. “I bet you look peaceful.” She smiled. “I bet you’re one of those guys who likes to watch his woman sleep, too. All that hopeless romantic and sweet.” She sighed and rolled on her back.

She needed to sleep. Exhaustion pulled at every bit of her. Crying, she had found, always hurt worse after she was turned, and part of that had been explained to her as simply this: the only liquid vampires could excrete from their eyes was blood, because that was the only liquid they ingested. (Oddly enough, that did not apply to her nether regions, but for that, she was grateful.) She had drank again, but it was not the same, not what she needed, and somewhere in the tingling flesh of her mouth, she could still taste Milo, all hot and metallic. She needed fresh blood, pure and simple.

But worse than that hunger was the knowledge that she might not be able to retrain herself and resist the kill. Human blood gained an exotic chaser as it pushed closer to death, like a good line of liquid cocaine. In a way, Tamus was right. She was playing at being human, and while she was really rather good at it, at the end of the day, she was undead at best, a monster at her worst.

But thankfully for every human within her reach, she had an alternative.

Madeleine walked her fingers across her nightstand and snagged her cell phone. She flipped through the contacts until she came to the ‘D’s. “Where are you?” Her finger stopped. “There you are.” She touched the number, and as it did, the words ‘blood doll’ blinked on the screen. She had stolen the moniker from a very popular vampire role-playing game. After all, that was what the living donors were: dolls who donated blood.

That there was an entire subculture was a little disconcerting at times, but the professional ones were in it for something beyond the appeal, the apparent cool factor that went with being submissive to ‘dark lords’. They saw the monetary value in extending the service to the real vampires, and as such developed their own clientele, not unlike their sex-hawking counterparts.

Her doll du jour was an older man—older being relative to her pretend age, of course—who doted on her like a favorite girl or that girl next door he kept hoping would let him cross that line. She would not. She just was not interested in him beyond their shared conversations and the little moments they enjoyed.

But the truth, the hard, ugly truth, was that she was using him. Occasionally for the attention he was so willing to give her. Sometimes for the pretend relationship they had cultivated over the years. And sometimes she was just hungry and he was willing to stick out his neck or wrist. Add in that Martin had developed a way to keep her from, well, killing him, and that made him a high commodity in her book.

“Hello, Madeleine, it’s been a while.”

“Martin.”

He chuckled. “So formal. You must be starving.”

She smiled into the phone. “How well you know me.”

“I’ll be over in about twenty minutes.”

She paused, suddenly ridden with a horrible sense of guilt. “No, Martin, that’s not why I called.” Was she really going to do this? “I thought you deserve to hear it from me…” She covered her eyes with one hand and shook her head. “…but I need to cancel my subscription to your service.”

Martin did not say anything, and Madeleine’s stomach tightened. “Are you certain?” His tone was empty, lacking any emotive hint. Professional.

“Yes,” I’m insane. “I’ve enjoyed our time together, but like most things, this too must come to an end.”

“If I may inquire, you have not found a replacement service, have you?” A spark of human insecurity wafted over the phone line.

“No, you have not been replaced.” She cringed.

Sometimes it was worse, the whole not being replaced thing. It meant you could not just blame another person, in this case, another entrepreneur, for taking what had been yours, be it person, partner or service. It meant there really might be something so wrong with you. And no one wanted to feel like that.

“But I am recommending your service to two of my colleagues,” she added in quickly through the thickening silence. “You should hear from them over the next couple of days.” He started to say something, but she had had about all she could take in her attempts to placate him. “Good bye, Martin.”

She hung up the phone and held it to her chest. Well, great. Not only did she feel guilty about hurting his feelings, she had hurt him because she felt bad about seeing someone else, no matter how much the blood doll had pre-dated the mage. All over a man she had been talking to for just over a week, had seen twice.

And worse, it did nothing to change the fact that she was now famished.

Continue: 15

Posting Timeline for "Wicked & Wonderful"

I am only going to be posting new chapters on Monday, Wednesday and Friday until I'm all caught up (there are 30 chapters written). Then I'll post twice a week, so that I'm still writing, but I can manage other things, too. :-)

Hope you're enjoying it! If you are, it would be great if you left comments to let me know!

Thanks!

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 13 - The Flesh is Willing

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The first kiss was tender, tenuous, that press of lips held a second longer than a friendly buss, yet enough to pull away from, should the mood deem it so. Milo reached out with his energy and found hers waiting just above her body, like a wave of cool ocean tide lapping at the beach of him. She inhaled sharply, stealing the breath from his mouth, as their energies met, mingled and melted into each other, and one hand snaked behind his head to pull him in closer. He closed his eyes and followed where she led.

She pressed her body against the line of his, free hand tugging at his shirt, and he obliged her, removing the offending garment. Fingers curled through the spread of hair across the broad expanse of his chest, and brought a moan of his own into her mouth once her fingers found his nipple piercings. She played and tugged at them, and he kissed from the corner of her mouth, across her jaw line, down her neck and along her shoulder in a cacophony of self-made music.

Madeleine let go of those little metal rings with a final twist, and he inhaled sharply. He could feel his eyes roll into the back of his head at her gesture and dragged teeth along that elegant curve between nape and neck. She shuddered beneath him, hands racing up his back to bring his mouth back to hers. Her hips rose to meet the length of him drawn tight against his jeans, and the little voice in his head screamed of boundaries and traps and possible death.

But Milo did not care. Her personal magick played in his like a child in spring after a long winter. It pulled and pushed at him like a million fingers, and it must have felt the same for her, because she broke more than one kiss in a giggle and a laugh.

The truth of the matter was simply this: he wanted to be here, in this moment, no matter the consequences. He could have listened to the voice in his head, run away, but he could no longer hear its protest beneath the hum of their magicks intertwined. He could not remember the last time he had enjoyed just kissing a woman without a motivating ulterior option, as was ken to most men his age. Madeleine, well, she he could keep kissing. Somewhere between her symphony of noises, her frantic hands, the scent of her skin beneath her perfume, he was more than a little content to continue this interesting thing they were endeavoring.

He covered her neck with kisses, her shoulders, and even the tops of her breasts. She arched her back off the mattress and into him, and in one deft movement, removed the last bastion of clothing between their heaving chests. Milo paused. Was he taking advantage of her amidst the chaotic blend of their energies? Would this be that moment she would remember later, her loss of control beckoning his? Was he so willing to risk everything he had built between them for this chance?

Hands touched his face, and he was met with her eyes. The room stilled as their ragged breaths steadied. “It’s okay,” she whispered in that space between them. “If I did not want you to do it, I would not have let you get this far. You believe that, do not you?”

Milo nodded, and she pulled him in for a kiss. But in her fervor, and perhaps also in his, the flesh of his tongue raked against something sharp. He pushed away from her, hand to mouth, and came away with blood, bright and red, across his fingertips. “You bit me.”

Madeleine scrambled from beneath him to the farthest point on the bed she could go without setting foot on the bedroom floor. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to. I just…I just got carried away.”

He stared at his fingers, tasted the telltale metallic stain in his mouth, and as her words penetrated his brain, a darker truth came to light. Zeke’s words at the office echoed in his head, that warning of what she could be, what it usually meant for someone to be so pale, keeping such hours…He repressed a shudder.

“You’re a vampire.” There was no musical introduction, no dark theme song playing as he made the proclamation.

She wrapped her arms around her own body and nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“You’re not going to try and deny it?”

Madeleine looked at him from her perch, dark lines running down her face from eyes that had been swallowed in endless pitch. “To what end? I am what I am, just as you are a mage. And really, you did not ask me, Milo. You kind of just told me. There’s no sense in lying about so obvious a truth.” She wiped at the seemingly offensive tears, and when she pushed at the bed again to secure her position on that part of the bed, he saw blood smeared against that hand.

“I suppose,” she continued, “this is enough reason to leave. I would not think any less of you, you know, if you wanted to pursue other ventures now, other avenues that require a little less necessary trust.”

He ignored where she was going with the conversation and concentrated on the injury. He could still feel the blood flowing off his tongue, but the pain had gone from a sharp, stabbing thing to a throbbing pulsation. “Will I become a vampire now?”

She shook her head and wiped away more tears, leaving dark feathers across her pale skin. “No, it requires you to be near Death’s door, and then you have to drink of me. As neither has occurred, I think you’re pretty much still one hundred percent human. Alive, heart beating. Yeah, human.”

“Do not mages have a innate ability to heal any blood damage?”

It was Milo’s turn to shake his head. “No, myth. We’re pretty much what you said, alive, heart beating, human. Being a mage would protect me if you were deciding that the sip you just got of me was something you’d like more of. But I will have to heal this like every other bruise and scrape on my body: slow and steady.”

“I did not mean to bite you.” She stood up and made her way to the window on the nearest wall. “I just kinda got lost in the moment, and I forgot to keep them hidden.”

“And if you had?”

She stared out of the window, fingers on the window sill, and in the light of the intruding moonlight, he could see her eyes were still dark, engulfed. “If I had meant to bite you, we would not be having this discussion. You’d be dead. Or dying.”

He touched his neck. “That’s good to know. But your eyes…”

Madeleine sighed and closed her eyes. “You taste like an amazing fine wine, Milo. And the part of me that enjoys such decadence, well, let’s just say I’m hungry now.”

Milo leaned back where he sat, still shirtless, and contemplated his options. “But you’re not going to eat me.”

She chuckled and swiped at her eyes again. The vampire blinked and daubed at the blood still welling beneath the whites of her eyeballs. The ebony was gone, and he could see her normal irises again. “No, I’m not going to eat you.”

“But our night’s pretty much shot then, is not it?”

She nodded. “It’s probably best if you go for now.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He slipped off the bed and sought out his shirt.

She came back to the bed and returned to her farthest most corner, like she wanted to see him but was afraid of what might happen if she got any closer. “Hey, Milo?”

“Yeah?” he replied as he tugged on his shirt and slipped into his shoes.

“I had a great time tonight.”

He grabbed his car keys off the carpet and smiled. “Me, too. We should do it again sometime.”

Hope rose and quickly fell from her features. “We’ll have to see.”

“That,” he said as he moved toward the doorway, “is better than a ‘no’. I’ll let myself out. G’night, Madeleine.”

She nodded in his direction. “Good night, Milo.”

*****

He had made it back to his car without looking over his shoulder to see if she had been unable to resist the urge. Sierra Vista at midnight was not exactly crawling with people, so it would not have been hard for her to just take him out, to drag him back kicking and screaming into her lair. A fuckin’ vampire…he shook his head. How could he have been so stupid? So naive?

Was everything he felt part of her magick? Had she used vampire tricks to lure him into her house? He unlocked his car and turned to look at her house. All the windows were dark, not so much as a candle to cast her silhouette against a surface for him to see. For all he knew, she could have committed hari cari. And it’s not like a dead vampire would leave a rotting corpse for the neighbors to complain about until some authority figure went to check.

He slid into the driver’s seat and banged his head lightly against the steering wheel. He felt like such an idiot. But how much of what he had seen was an act? And more importantly, was any of it real? He could not trust his own feelings, but how exactly could he discern how honest she was? If this was all a means to an end, then she would lie about it to him, with a sweet, blank face. If it was not, well, here he was back at square one again. In the dark again.

He needed to sort this out, everything he knew about her, about vampires, about dark side magic, but he could not do it here. Key in the ignition, he managed to get home in one piece. While going the speed limit, no less.

He did not remember the walk into the apartment, or if he even saw Douglas on his way to his room, but he soon found himself beneath his blankets very much alone. And despite everything that had just happened, Milo wished he had stayed there with her anyway.

Continue: 14

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 12 - Magickal Mayhem, Indeed

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“I don’t know if a movie’s a good idea,” Madeleine said over the phone.

Milo switched the cell phone over to his good ear. The aftermath of the magick-heavy battle with the imps and fairies had completely deafened him in the left ear for pretty much the majority of the past twenty-four hours, and now all that remained was a slight buzzing that made the words leaving her lips sound muffled and fuzzy. “Say that again.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if you and I should go to a movie together.”

“And why is that?”

“You know,” she offered. “Two strangers in a dark movie theater watching a scary movie that practically throws the girl into the guy’s protective arms…”

“I’m failing to see an issue here,” he replied. He rolled on his back, once again thankful for the bed’s pillow top layer against his aching body.

She sighed again, and he pictured her, laying there in her bed, one hand to her forehead, as she tried to figure out what to do with him. He chuckled.

“It’s not funny,” she bristled.

Oh, but it is. Not that he really thought it was amusing, but if she really did not want to go, if she really thought it was a bad idea, she would have just told him it was not going to happen and hung up. That they were still talking gave him hope she could be convinced, and he was going to run with it until he either got her to go or ran into a brick wall. He gave a half-whispered prayer for the first option.

“Then let’s not go together,” he said.

“What?” She sounded genuinely confused.

He shrugged, even though he knew she could not see him. “If it’s the ‘together’ thing that’s bothering you, then let’s just skip it. Let’s just be two people who want to see the same movie at the same time, who prefer the middle of a centrally located row and find themselves in the position to share a soda and bucket of popcorn too large for either of them to consume alone.”

“Really?” The word sounded so small coming from the phone, and it occurred to him that she was more than a little broken, a little jaded, and his pushing without really pushing, the whole options with options, was honestly new to her. That one word carried such a human tone to it, he almost forgot she was not, that she had to be super, everything considered.

“Yeah, really.” He rested his free hand on his bare chest. “See, here’s the thing. I want to see you. And I think you want to see me. Whatever this is that’s holding you back—old baggage, fearful precedence, normal concern about dipping more than your toe into this—I don’t want it to keep us from seeing each other. If that means we have to pretend for a little bit to get you comfortable with the idea of dating again, so be it.”

She did not say anything, though he swore he could still hear her on the other end, her breath slow and steady. He bit his tongue and waited her out. The worst she could do was say ‘no’, right? He closed his eyes and prayed silently to the powers that be to nudge this in his favor. Come on, come on, come on!

Madeleine finally broke the silence. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He kept his tone light, nonchalant.

“I can’t go to the movie with you,” she explained. “But I am going to see that horror flick that opened tonight when it shows at 7:35. And I do like sitting in as close to the middle of the theater as humanly possible for the acoustics with the comforting taste of popcorn in a bin so big I will have to carry it with two hands and be unable to manage a drink as well.”

He chuckled and cleared his throat. “Well then. I’m sorry to hear that we won’t, in fact, be attending together. I guess I will just go alone to see that horror flick, too, at 7:35, me and my large cola,” he faked a giant sigh, “in the middle of that dark, dark theater alone.”

Madeleine laughed. “Yes, that sounds best. You alone in the dark, me alone in the dark. Definitely for the best.”

*****

Given that he was trying to find her in an already-darkened theater based on shape and hair color he remembered from photos and their first meeting, Milo resigned himself to the fact that his plan may very well have backfired. There were mostly couples in the theater that he could see, and those sitting singly seemed to be mostly male, with the few females scattered at the top and bottom of the theater seating.

Had she changed her mind? Was she sitting elsewhere watching and waiting to see if he was actually coming? He stood on his tip toes and craned his neck, as if that would somehow give him a better vantage point from the entrance. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered as he walked up the stairs to get to the middle of the theater. “I’m just going to sit down, and if she shows, she shows. If she doesn’t, I’ll take the hint and leave her alone.”

He did not want to be a stalker, and he did not want to push her any farther away than she already was. But patience was not something he did well when he really wanted things to go his way.

The previews started rolling, and he sighed into his soda.

“You know, you really should have a little popcorn with that,” a female voice whispered from his right side. Milo just about jumped out of his seat. “To absorb the excess and keep you from being swishy.”

“Madeleine?”

In the light of the screen, she smiled at him. “Hi.”

He shook his head. “You just scared the shit out of me,” he whispered. “How in the world did you manage to sneak up on me like that?”

Her smile widened. “I’m just that good,” she whispered. He opened his mouth to protest, but she raised one finger to her lips. “Shhh…movie…”

The movie itself was all right. A lot of potential left fruitless in the wake of Hollywood story splicing and predictability. What he caught of it. And he had meant to pay attention, but her energy batted at him like a lazy cat, cool and seductive. She smelled good, like clean laundry just out of the dryer without the froo-froo aftertaste of dryer sheet, and every time she grazed his hand with hers, the hairs rose on his arm in an electric tingle.

She rubbed at her shoulders a couple of times before he leaned over, his mouth to her ear. “I’ve been told I give a great back massage.”

Madeleine shook her head. “Oh,” she purred, “that just leads to trouble.”

“Nah, I’ll be a good boy,” he whispered back. “You can even keep your shirt on.”

She chuckled and pointed toward the movie screen. “Shhh…he’s about to get eaten!”

He shook his head. “This isn’t over.”

She leaned closer, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Oh, I really hope it’s not.”

Milo smiled and watched the bad guy get eaten by the demon that had been harassing everyone, but he would not be able to recall the details later, plotting as he was to get her to take him home with her. It was not nefarious, his intention, but more part curiosity and more than a little of not wanting his time with her to be over.

*****

She sipped at the remains of his soda across the table in the food court. It was average sized, as far as mall eateries went, and she had passed on his offer to buy her dinner, insisting it was all right that he eat, if he was hungry. Hence the sipping while he was munching on nachos.

They were one of the last bodies in this place, given that the mall was about fifteen minutes from closing. All the little store fronts had pulled down their little metal gates, most of the food places were doing last minute clean up, and the security guards were biding their time before everyone needed to be kicked out. Ah, the perks of a smaller town.

“The ending was horrible,” she mouthed around the straw, peering up at him through the parted curtain of her dark brown hair. “I mean, seriously, did he really think he was going to get out of there that easily? It’s a horror/thriller flick, for Christ’s sake! Had the character never watched a horror movie in his life?”

Milo nodded and let her continue on her rampage. It was amusing, in a way, to see someone so animated over something that was clearly fiction, and poorly done fiction at that. Besides, if he was honest, he just liked watching her. Not in that creepy, homicidally-inclined stalker way, but in a warmer, romantically-inclined interested suitor kind of way. At least that was his intention, and as he watched her wind down, he really hoped that was how it came off.

“Ahem,” she faux cleared her throat, “what should we do now?” Her eyes wandered into their peripherals, and the mage could see the security guard hovering like vultures, circling ever closer to their table.

He reached across the table and touched her hand. She started to pull away, paused and let his fingers slide over the top of her skin. “I owe you a backrub, you know.”

A smile peeked from her lips. “I don’t know…”

“It’s just a backrub,” he offered.

“Just like this was coincidental meeting of two people who weren’t dating?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Touché, mademoiselle. But you had a good time, right? And do you really just want to go home alone and do whatever it is you do until the wee hours of the morning?”

“Well…”

Her resolve was not as strong as she might have hoped, and Milo pushed forward. He raised one hand. “I, Milo Goddard, do hereby proclaim that I will bestow upon you one backrub without any illicit intent. Should I fail in this matter or you find my actions discomforting, simply tell me so, and I will bid you a fond, but final, adieu. What say you?”

Madeleine, in the midst of his mini-monologue, had covered her mouth with a hand and a look of feigned astonishment crossed her face. At least he hoped it was feigned. “If I say yes, will you stop proclaiming anything, everything, and just follow me home?”

“Oh, yeah, I think I can manage that,” he replied with a little inner shout of hooray.

“Then yes, yes, Milo, I will take you home with me for a backrub, only a backrub, or so help me God, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

Milo grinned. “I’ll take my chances.”

*****

She drove kind of slow, but he was not sure if that was because she was an overly cautious driver at night or if she was attempting to ensure she did not lose him during the trek back to her place. And considering how much he wanted to be there already, this pace was about to kill him. He had been honest in his proclamation. If all she wanted was a backrub, then that’s all he was going to give her. He had all the time in the world to wait her out, since that tact seemed to be working best.

They pulled up to a quaint little house on end of a cul-de-sac, and she led him silently, shyly inside. He closed the door behind them, leaning against it.

“I don’t do this, you know,” she whispered.

“Do what?”

Madeleine smiled. “I…I don’t bring men to my house so soon after meeting them.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Just a backrub, Madeleine. As much as I’d like to kiss you right now, I promised you that it would just be a backrub.”

She opened and quickly closed her mouth. “Just a backrub.” She reached for him with one hand, and he took it with a smile. She tugged him behind her as she wandered deeper into the house. “The only place we can do this is…” They were walking down a short hallway. She paused at a closed doorway. “…here.”

She pushed the door open, and Milo smiled. She blushed as they entered her bedroom.

“You make things harder,” he whispered.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Not my intention, but it’s easier to give me a backrub if I’m all laid out.” She tugged at her shirt.

“Um, you don’t have to…do…that…” Milo swallowed hard. A lacy black bra held back the ample curves of her pale white breasts. When his eyes finally made it back to her eyes, she was smiling. He licked his lips. “Just a backrub.” He did not say it to remind her, but to remind himself, like a mantra to keep his mind to task.

She clambered onto the bed, pulled the pillows into a small pile in the middle of the mattress by the headboard, and leaned on them with one sweep of her hand to drape all that long, dark hard over one shoulder. She looked at him from where she lay with eyes that knew all too well what she had just done had undone his resolve more than just a little.

Milo cleared his throat and crawled onto the bed next to her. “Um, where’s it hurt? Just your shoulders?”

She murmured in agreement. “There, and down to the small of my back. If you don’t mind. So rare is it that I get someone so inclined to rub me down.”

“I don’t mind. Not at all.” He started with her shoulders, all that tension melting away in his hands, and a bevy of sounds escaped her mouth.

They spoke, small talk, but if anyone had asked later what they talked about, he would have been unable to say. If they were to ask what he could recall, he would have to say it was the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingertips, the melody of appreciative moans, groans, and ‘oh, yes, right there’ that issued from her lips. His hands ran the course of her bared back in tactile memorization, skipping the bra straps and closure.

She was cool to the touch, and he had some definite ideas about why, but as she was not attempting to eat or control him, he was pretty content to just keep his hands on her.

He leaned closer to her head. “On your back.” Madeleine lifted her head up and gave him a quizzical look as she complied with his request. “Now close your eyes.” A mild wave of paranoia shifted through her eyes, but she closed them.

Milo traced the curves of her neck to the slope of her shoulders, chasing the lines of her down the length of her torso, fingers stopping short on the waist of her jeans. Her body exhaled and shivered, the corner of her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth. He kept clear of her breasts, drawing patterns along her bra and the flesh in their perimeter.

“You know,” she whispered between panted breath. “if you really want to kiss me, you better do it soon before I’m so relaxed I fall asleep.”

His hands paused, and Milo’s exhalation caught in his throat. “Really?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, the smile on her lips reaching all that liquid brown.

“Oh, yeah.”

Continue: 13

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 11 - Ghost of Boyfriends Past

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10

She landed in her backyard in a soft flutter of feathers. Sanctuary was rare for the likes of her, and this place was most definitely hers. She headed inside and flicked on the kitchen light switch. After tossing the keys on the kitchen counter and digging her cell phone out of her purse, she found his number and tapped the ‘dial’ button.

It rang once before a weary male voice whispered his hello.

Dammit, she had not even considered the time. “Did I wake you?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

The voice on the other end perked up. “Madeleine?”

She smiled. “Yes, it’s me. I…I got your message earlier, but I needed some time…”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, but she pressed on.

“But I think a movie is a great idea.”

The disappointment faded. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you still want to go.”

Milo chuckled. “Oh, yeah, I do. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head all day. Er, I hope that didn’t sound too stalker-ish,” he said sheepishly.

“No, no, I’ve had my share of stalkers, and that just sounded, well, interested. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been that, well, interested in me.”

“Then they were idiots.”

It was her turn to chuckle. “Yeah, so I’m figuring out. How was your day?”

He paused, as if contemplating just how to answer her query. “Work was, well, it kept me on my toes. Imps are nasty little bastards.”

She reached into the fridge and pulled out something to drink. “Imps?” She popped it into the microwave and pushed all the necessary buttons. “Do tell.”

Milo chuckled again and related a story about imps and a grocery store. He made it seem so commonplace, as if everyone took down dark supernatural creatures every day, and perhaps that was because, as he told her, he pretty much did. She really liked his laidback nature and his storytelling, and she felt like she was standing in that store, battling those mini-demons herself.

The more he talked, the more she felt connected, tied to him. Not only was he smart, but he was funny. She had picked that up at the restaurant, yes, but she had been so curious about his supernatural side, it had been a tad distracting.

“The last time I saw you smile like that, you and I had just started dating,” a soft, sad voice whispered. It had been so quiet, those words, she had almost thought she had imagined them. But when she turned, Milo still talking in her ear, the very faint, silvery form of her ex lingered in by the kitchen doorway.

No way.

“You can’t be here,” she hissed as quietly as she could manage.

“What?” Milo asked.

“Um, nothing, just a pesky bug crawling through the kitchen.” She watched the ghost, willing him away, but he did not go. “You were saying?”

Milo yawned. “It wasn’t important, Madeleine. Just sleepy ramblings.”

The yawn was contagious, and she covered her mouth. Outside the kitchen window, the sun tugged at her. “It’s late. I’m sorry to have kept you.”

“No, don’t apologize. I had almost lost hope that you’d call me back. It was worth the loss of sleep, I promise.”

She smiled and the ghost sighed. She ignored him. “Let’s do it again, this phone call thing.”

Milo chuckled. “Yeah, let’s. Until then, I bid you good night.”

“Good night, Milo. Sleep sweet.”

“Good night, Madeleine.”

She hung up the phone and turned her full attention to the ghost still hovering above the threshold. “What do you want?”

He shook his head. “Oh, nothing. There’s nothing I could give you now. There never was really, was there? I’m a failure, and I let you down so many times when I knew what you wanted was so very little…”

“Then why are you here?” she interrupted what she knew could be a long diatribe over his life of continued failures and ‘woe is me’. Given that he was dead, she did not really see a point in letting him carry on. It had been annoying when he was alive. It was somehow more so with him after death.

“I just…” he paused, his mouth moving silently in contemplation. “I just wanted to see how you were doing after I was gone, and it seems,” he sighed, “you are doing well. He seems like a nice guy.”

She scoffed, “Don’t play like you have clue as to what’s going on in my life. You didn’t before, even when you were apart of it, and you sure as hell don’t now. I don’t have time for this.”

His form shimmered, the lines blurring. He was expending some pretty good energy to hold onto this plane, and while she would have once given him kudos for the effort, her patience was wearing thin with the rising sun. “You’re still mad at me.”

“No,” she shook her head at him. “I stopped being mad at you once I set you on fire. It’s cleansing like that, purifying.”

He frowned. “You didn’t have to kill me, you know.”

Madeleine thought about it for a second. “Um, yeah, I really kind of did. I mean, what were you doing with your life? Weren’t you the one who said you were wasting it? I mean, you couldn’t keep your wife or your kids. You couldn’t get promoted at your job. You were up to your eyeballs in debt and dragging me down with you. What, really, did you have to live for, Gene?”

Ghostly eyes widened. Was he actually tearing up? “You always knew how to hurt me.”

She crossed her arms. “You always made it real easy.”

“I should go then?”

He made it a question, and she was quick to answer. “Yes, you should. You should get the hell out of my life and never come back.”

“I’d hoped…”

“What, Gene? That we could be friends? That I would look past all the bridges you burned between us and forgive you yet again for being a whiny bastard?”

He shook his head. “I guess I deserved that. I loved you, you know.”

“Yes, maybe once upon a time, you did,” she replied with more than a little sadness than she was happy to let show. “Once upon a time, when I was shiny and new, and we could play at being the happy couple, maybe then you loved me and not just the void I was filling in your life. But at the end, that’s all you wanted, to not be alone, to be able to tell people that you weren’t so worthless after all, because you had someone like me in your life.

“But I’m not a placeholder, Gene, and you just didn’t get that. You were just as bad as Patrick,” he flinched and half-faded before her eyes, “in your own way.” She sighed, suddenly really tired and thankful for the plastic coating that kept the sun’s full power out of her house. “But I can’t do this. I won’t rehash this with you again. You didn’t listen when you were alive, and really, what are you going to do with the information now that you’re not?”

He faded away—the sun affected him as well—until only his head remained, like a morbid Cheshire Cat. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. And I know you hate that, too, the apology, so I’ll stop. I just thought you should know what I heard on the other side.”

Madeleine sat up straight on the bar stool. “What did you hear?”

“Someone has made it known that they are interested in your mage.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Who?”

He shrugged, as much as he could with just a head. “There’s no name attached, Maddie, just whispers.”

She ignored his use of her nickname. For the information, it cost her nothing to let him call her that. “Which channels?” She was pretty sure she knew, but she needed to hear it.

He grimaced. “You won’t like it.”

“But you knew that when you came, Gene. For the love of the gods, for once in your life, do right by me and just tell me.”

“Dark channels.”

Ah, shit. She fought to repress the shiver riding her spine. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “No, just be careful. If he’s important to you…”

“He is.”

“Already…” he sighed again. “Just take care of yourself. You know better than anyone what such a message, such an interest could mean. Good bye, Maddie.”

“Good bye, Gene. Find a way to have a good afterlife, okay?”

He sighed, a great, shuddering breath, and faded away. “Not that I deserve it…”

She ignored his parting remarks and thought instead about what he had told her. Could this be a ruse? Could Patrick have somehow tapped into the other side—not to be confused with the Other World, where he could easily access—and passed the message there, knowing that Gene would take it to her in his misguided quest to seek her favor? No, that did not sit right well with her.

Patrick liked Gene about as much as she liked eating small, furry creatures: not at all. And quite honestly he did not think the man was bright enough in life to even attempt to befriend (though, really, who would the vampire ever deem worth befriending?), he would not bother trying to get the message to her through the ghost. No, he had other ways, other minions like Tamus, and it was far too close to the minotaur’s visit to be a direct attack.

Now, would Patrick use the Other World to take out the mage? That she could see. Maybe not take out literally, but more so to observe and bring him back information. The light side of the Other World would find such spying beneath them, but the dark side, well, they could conceivably seek to curry favor with someone as powerful as the elder vampire by going above and beyond the mission laid before them.

If her heart could beat, it would be a rabid animal in her chest at this moment, trying to break free of her rib cage. Her interest in Milo had more than caught Patrick’s interest, and that did not bode well for either her or the mage. Would he even be prepared against an attack? A horde of imps was one thing, and what had he talked about from the other day? Gnomes? They were piecemeal in the hierarchy of dark side creatures.
 
It suddenly occurred to her that backing off now was not enough. She could not call off their first date. She could not just admit defeat to Patrick.
 
Because even if he believed her, which he most likely would not, there was no way that the other vampire could ensure all those who had been duly informed could be called off. Or if they would heed it. Blood lust was rampant on the dark side, and once the call had been made…

She shuddered.

What in the hell was she going to do now?

Continue: 12

Wicked & Wonderful: Chapter 10 - Abby

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09
Sleep was fitful and purposeless. Madeleine woke up exhausted and more than a little hungry. Two mugs of blood, and she still could not decide what to do with Milo’s voicemail.

“It’s just a movie,” she whispered into the nothingness of her kitchen. “It’s not like he’s asking me to marry him or have babies with him.”

Tamus had walked all over her dreams, though, and seeing Milo’s head crushed beneath one of his giant cloven hooves left the vampire breathless and more than a little afraid. Had he already gone back to Patrick? She shook her head. It did not matter. She had already set the ball rolling, however it may land, and the rest was out of her hands.

Minus this one little thing, that was not so little after all. What in the hell was she going to do about Milo?

She needed a voice of reason, and so she flipped through the contacts on her phone until she came to the number she needed. She pressed ‘dial’ and waited through the rings.

“Hello?”

Madeleine sighed in relief. “Abby?”

“Um, Maddie, who else would it be?”

The vampire chuckled. “It’s been a day, so to speak. Can I come over?”

“All full?”

She knew her best friend did not ask to be rude, but because she knew how fragile Madeleine’s control was when she was distraught. And even a witch as powerful as Abby was not going to be able to stop a ravenous vampire, and they had both agreed that eating her babies was a friendship deal breaker. Her husband, on occasion, was negotiable, as the inside joke went between them. (Though, he always liked to remind them that he was psychic, so he would know before they could do anything.)

“To the brim,” she replied.

“Well, the kids are in the bath, so by the time you get here, if you fly really slow, they should be getting into jammies and bed.”

Madeleine laughed. “Maybe I’ll walk a little first. Do a good skulking around the neighborhood, scare some small children.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Abby chuckled. “See you soonish.”

*****

“Bite anyone lately?” Abby’s husband, Henry, asked from his computer chair with a giant, cheesy grin on his face. “Haven’t read about any deaths under mysterious circumstances lately.”

Madeleine lowered the tea cup from her lips. “That’s only because I made the newspapers to cover it up in exchange for the death of one smart ass psychic.”

Henry laughed and spun his chair around to face his computer screen. “Yeah, yeah, you can’t kill me. Abby likes me too much.”

“Or so I keep telling her,” Abby retorted, towel-wrapped baby Ty over one shoulder, jammies over the other. She handed the baby over to her husband. “Dress this wiggle worm, and we’ll keep it that way.” No matter how she might have jested, Madeleine heard a softness in her voice that matched the kiss she planted on Henry’s thinning hair. “Gotta get this one all settled, then I’m all yours, Maddie.”

The vampire leaned back on the couch and waved at the tyke. Ty had always liked her, and his pale blue eyes widened with the delighted smile. He reached for her as his father worked him out of the towel and into the jammies. She made funny faces at him, and he bounced around on Henry’s lap.

“You know, you could help,” he said. “Or you could just continue to make this harder for me.”

Madeleine shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Those are my options? I have to think about it. What do you think, Ty baby? Should we help? Or should we hinder?” Ty clapped his hands, giggled and bounced some more. “The decision’s in! We should most definitely hinder.”

Henry shot her a glare, but it was all in jest. In no time, the baby was all dressed in jammies, and Mommy scooped him up and disappeared into the back of the house. “You know, if I didn’t know you were a cold-blooded killer, I’d actually fight back when you enlist the kiddos in your dirty work.”

“Oh, Henry, you’re not afraid of me.”

He pondered it for a moment. “No, I’m really not, you vampy bitch.”

“Right back at you, shitty charlatan.”

He laughed and went back to his computer game. Once upon a time, he had not been so sure. Early on in their relationship, he had been pretty sure that befriending someone who thought of you as food was a really bad idea. Add in that he thought she was a bad influence…well, Abby had made it perfectly clear that she could get into enough trouble all by herself. He had let it go back then, and it had been three years without anyone in his family playing blood bank, so Henry had decided the vampire might not be such a bad friend.

Oh, and it did not hurt that she made a mean brownie.

*****

“And he’s a mage? You’re sure?” Abby poured herself another cup of tea and offered the tea pot to Madeleine. She took the proffered pot and filled up her glass. An advantage of having a witch brew your tea was that she knew exactly what to put in it to suit the situation or the drinker. What they were imbibing now was a carefully measured mixture of chamomile, yew needles, and “secret ingredients”. That was all Abby had been willing to divulge all those years ago, and considering it had dulled Madeleine’s hunger and calmed her nerves, well, the vampire did not see a reason to push any further.

“Oh, I’m sure. Definitely human. Definitely magickal. Screams mage.”

The witch murmured something to her tea cup. “That’s good, though, right? I mean, he’ll be more inclined to understand your, um, predicament. Unlike the last one.”

Madeleine nodded. Her crispy critter ex-lover had expected her, among other things, to give up her life as if she could just stop being a vampire. It had fallen under the “I love you but” laundry list he had given her throughout their two year relationship. C’est la vie. “There’s just something about this guy, though, some spark I haven’t felt since, well…”

“Patrick,” Abby finished for her. She frowned a little bit. She had not had the pleasure of meeting the other vampire, but the stories Madeleine had told her had, as she had once said, left a bitter taste in her mouth. And after hearing about his minion’s visit the morning before, well… “The nerve of him!! I can’t believe he sent that damn minotaur to threaten you! Who does he think he is?”

“I know, it’s incredibly, annoyingly unfair…”

“To say the least,” the other woman interjected.

“But the threat is very real. You and I both know that. And if this guy’s as much a mage as I think he is…”

Abby’s eyes widened. “Patrick could take that as a real problem. It’s harder to scare off other supers. Especially one that interests you as much as Milo—that’s his name, right?—does. But are we going to let this guy slip through just because Patrick’s unhappy with this break in your misery?”

Madeleine gave a huge sigh of relief. “No, no, we’re not.”

The witch leaned back in her chair. “Then go to the movie. We’ll deal with the rest as it comes.”

*****

The flight back home had been a peaceful one. Her own personal glamour allowed her to float unseen through the night sky, just a shadow in the corner of the human eye, a passing cloud, a drifting bird. She was always thankful for Abby’s counsel. It had kept her from going over the edge on more than one occasion in the past five years.

Abby also knew how bad this could be for the vampire. She had seen the aftermath of Tamus’ last visit to Madeleine’s house. The backyard had been torn apart like a tornado had touched down. Her boyfriend at the time had come away from it in a strait jacket and his own personal padded room in the psych ward in Tucson, screaming of monsters wanting to eat him. It had not been too far off from the truth, with the raging bull man chasing him around the fence line in large, earth shaking steps. Poor guy, his mind just could not reconcile what was happening with what he was seeing, and he had just snapped.

“This is what happens, Madeleine,” Tamus had said as he straddled the man’s curled up position amidst the chaotic remains. “You have been warned. The next time, we may not be so courteous.” He had left in the same kind of portal as he had this time around, and the vampire freed of his magickal bonds had run over to her boyfriend in tears.

She had called an ambulance, and then she had called Abby. And between their magickal abilities, all questions had been kept to a minimum, and the paramedics had bought the quickly conceived story about drug-use gone awry. And while those humans would be fuzzy on the details and more than a little confused when the tox screen came back clean, they had been all too clear to the vampire. She was not meant to be happy, and Patrick would see to it, right or wrong, that she was reminded.

But she was older now, stronger, and whatever it was that had so drawn her to Milo excited her. And it was that excitement that kept the fear at bay. She was already looking forward to the movie, and she did not even know what he would propose to see.

And for now, that was enough.

Continue: 11